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Reviving a Distinctive Medical Ethic

Creator

Churchill, Larry R.

Bibliographic Citation

Hastings Center Report. 1989 May/Jun; 19(3): 28-34.

Abstract

Our culture is well on its way to reducing medical ethics to legal requirements, general citizen ethics, or personal values. A distinctive ethic for medicine provides critical distance and moral meaning for the profession and an enriched societal ethic...The critique of elitism in professional ethics has not resulted in a great egalitarian affirmation of values, but in a diminishment of the place and importance of values generally.

Edmund Pellegrino claims that medical ethics must be derived from a
perception of the patient's "damaged humanity," rather than from the
self-imposed duties of professionals. This essay explores the meaning and
examines ...